NyQuil cold and flu. 10% alcohol. Cherry flavor.

If she’s my age (50s) it’s easy to wake up with a night sweat. No fun, and really fucking annoying if you’ve been a good sleeper all your life.
Exercise as much as possible, no caffeine after 2p, don’t eat after 730p or so. YMMV. Trying to get used to the new rules the hormones (or lack thereof) are imposing, sucks. If she can get a blood panel done, or has a sympathetic doc, you might have more options, supplements, etc.
I don’t follow all these rules consistently, btw, but the NyQuil or generic version seems to work for me.. good luck.

I find myself strangely tired after spending a day outdoors doing not a damn thing. Seriously how hard is ice fishing, but I come home ready for bed. Same with deer hunting in a box blind, zero work but damn I’m ready for bed.

Short walk, sit down listen and watch birds. Keep track and make notes. Don’t give up because you feel unproductive, the stillness is the product. 3-5 hours of letting the stillness wash over you.

Or split and stack firewood. That’ll make you tired too.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Any ideas? Thanks

Yes, Calms Forte by Highland products, available many places over the counter, not a drug, is homopathic, been around for years, and IT WORKS.

Doc said ZZquill. best OTC I've tried.
Already take Gabapentin for neuropathy.
I hate being awake for 50-60 hours.

I know a few who do the nighttime cold medicine. Melatonin may at least offer a placebo effect.


https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equ...bEAQYASABEgLwL_D_BwE


I do the above linked aids at times, no medicine, just the sleep aid. The dose is 2, I just take one. I don’t need to be ‘knocked out’, it does work for me.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
My wife has trouble getting to sleep these days. I know we have more than a few members who have the same problem. Can anyone recommend a non-prescription sleep aid? No Ambien or anything like that, and not for use every day. I think if she could get one really good night's sleep a week, she'd be OK.

She tried melatonin and it was ineffective. Any ideas? Thanks

Holy smokes this was a topic in our house for a while. Let me grab the bottles and get back to you here a sec. Melatonin made me feel like someone hit me over the head with a 2x4. I can't take it.

EDIT:

Okay here's my wife and I landed on. Neither are prescription or "habit-forming".

My wife, on recommendation from her DR started taking what I believe is the generic version of Unisom.

Doxylamine succinate tablets that usually come in your nearest whatever brand. Rite Aid/Walgreens whatever in-house brand. My wife swears by this stuff and usually only takes about half or a quarter if she can break it that small. Your mileage will vary, of course. I've used it and it works well, but it leaves me feeling groggy or worse, a little hungover. It only took two quarter-piece hangovers to swear off the stuff. I started doing a little research and discovered that Doxylamine is one of the two major sleep-aids that people seem to use regularly. Doxylamine, I've read, stays in your system for a bit.

I'm looking at the typical box she picked up and it's 48 25mg tablets. Be forewarned though: If you break these little things in half, and keep them in the bathroom or vanity, they will turn to a small pile of blue dust within 24 hrs if there's so much as .001% humidity in the air.



I started occasionally using the other widely recommended/discussed sleep aid: Diphenhydramine HCl in 25mg tablets, also generic in-house brand (Meijer, Ride-aid, Walgreens, CVS, etc). I break these into 2 or 3 pieces usually. These come in a bottle though so they don't breakdown at all when I dump the other pieces back in. This sleep aid is much easier to "recover" from, so to speak, and I've read it stays in your body for far less time. I can take a half or quarter, get a good nights rest, and wake up not feeling dehydrated or hungover. I suspect that these were giving me heartburn a bit, because I was breaking them and they have a coating on them to help ease digestion, like ibuprofen; however, I also found that taking these with a larger amount of water helps a great deal. The drawback to that though is that I have to pee like the dickens when I wake up.

Falling asleep, for me, is really not the problem. It's staying asleep that's the real pickle. I've always been a light sleeper, but now with a wife that might snore or thrash about, 4 kids, strange noises, and stresses from whatever else in my life... I can tell when I haven't gotten a solid night's sleep in a few days. The diphenhydramine helps me stay asleep for 5-6hrs or more.



There's probably more anecdotal info I could convey. I'm sure this is probably enough for now though.

YMMV. I hope something works. Waking up from a solid six hours of sleep or more is glorious, as is laying down and being able to actually fall asleep shortly thereafter.

Try some chamomile tea and a dose of Magnesium Glycinate (or Threonate) perhaps, vitamin D3 is also important.

I've been taking a fish oil caplet every night about a hour or hour and a half before bed. Seems to work for me.

I use 1st Phorm Magnesium. A similar product would work just as well. https://1stphorm.com/products/magnesium/ Sometimes with a protein drink depending on how the day went.

Not a supplement, but a cool to almost cold dark room is a big help to me.

I'll reiterate the zzzquil or just straight Benadryl.

I've used melatonin with hit or miss results. Although I read recently that people actually react better to lower doses of it, so I've been experimenting with that recently.

On the non-medication side, does she try and wake up at the same time every day?

I had numerous sleep issues, and waking up at the same time every day helped quite a bit. A regular bedtime helped too, but I found that the regular wake up time ended up precipitating sleepiness and me wanting to go to bed regardless.

https://medterracbd.com/produc...164d22&oid=1&affid=3

Found these a few years ago and they work for me. There may be something better out by now, but i can chew one of these and be exhausted in 30 minutes with no desire to do anything else but go to sleep. Wake up feeling great.

Have her try "Four Sigmatic" Chill Cacao mix with Reishi (Amazon)
This will definitely help her
I use a frother and mix with low fat milk
Kinda like a grown up hot chocolate
Night,night.

I get lousy sleep. I take two Advil PMs and I’m out. I only do this once a week. I’m groggy in the morning though.

Occasionally I take two generic Tylenol PMs before I go to bed. It works well for me and is inexpensive.

For the rare occasion when I needed it, Benadryl works for me too.

HOWEVER, my son, a few months back, couldn’t sleep due to an illness he picked up. After several nights of this I consulted with a family friend MD and he suggested trying the Benadryl. We don’t take meds often and he had never had it before.

He fell asleep quickly but maybe 90 minutes later he was up and AGITATED like you couldn’t believe. Awake but not fully awake, yelling, screaming, crying, very much out of character. After a couple hours of this he fell back asleep, I’m sure due to pure exhaustion.

Checked in with the doc again and he reported it is a known but relatively rare adverse reaction and said no more Benadryl for him until least after puberty, and then it could be tried again.

So, yea, watch for that.

quote:

NyQuil cold and flu.

I take a teaspon a night and it helps me get to sleep. I'm lucky to get 4 hours a night with Nyquil. Without it I get a couple of hours at most.

Might want to be careful about using long term.

https://www.scientificamerican...rease-dementia-risk/

Rubbing one out and taking a bong hit works for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Lunasee:
Rubbing one out and taking a bong hit works for me.

That right there is funny. Ohio legalized weed,
I don't get tested anymore so when they open some stores I'll try some gummies to help me sleep.
My brother visited a couple months ago, took a couple hits off his pipe, first time in 40 years, WOW! I think that would help me sleep better than anything else.
Better than ZZQuell and bourbon